IMMA-clude Me Out

I am delighted that the artist Alan Phelan’s 2012 short film of my short story ‘Include Me Out’ is being shown as a video installation as part of a new exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) entitled IMMA Collection: Fragments. Here is the exhibition blurb and Camille Souter’s painting which is being used as the press image for the show:

This exhibition borrows its title from Philosopher Walter Benjamin’s comparison of the work of translation to re-assembling fragments of a broken vase – the individual fragments must come together, but need not be like each other. This could also be taken as an allegory for exhibition making, or collecting. The exhibition includes the first-showing since their acquisition of a number of recent works by Irish artists, including The sky looks down on almost as many things as the ceiling, (2013) a wall based sculpture by Aleana Egan and commissioned works by Ronan McCrea and Alan Phelan. The latter two are lens-based works titled Medium (Corporate Entities) and Include me out of the Partisan Manifesto, which resulted from IMMA’s programme of temporary exhibitions.

Joanna Crawford and Brendan McCormack in Alan Phelan’s film, Include Me Out of the Partisans Manifesto (2012)

My short story ‘Include Me Out’ was originally commissioned by IMMA as a catalogue text for Alan Phelan’s 2009 exhibition Fragile Absolutes. For that project he had taken all of the italicised words from Slavoj Žižek’s book of that name, and used them as random word associations towards a series of new works, which are realised in a variety of materials and processes, from hand-carved marble, through to video and papier-mâché sculptures. In writing about this work, then, I decided to use the same italicised words as a mandated vocabulary for a story which might reflect (upon) and amplify certain aspects of Phelan’s work. For Phelan to then make a film adaptation of the story, for final inclusion in the Fragile Absolutes series, and for that film to be acquired for IMMA’s collection, makes for a wholly apt and a pleasingly (if not vertiginously) circular narrative logic. IMMA have even included a large reproduction of Picasso’s Women Running on the Beach in the installation (within the ‘light lock’), which will make sense to anyone who has read the story. My bibliographical notes for the text are also displayed.

A suburban couple battle through the apparent obliteration of their shared experience as their DVD collection is painstakingly broken up and recycled. The film was based on a short story by Tony White written as a fictional representation of Alan Phelan’s art practice.

If you can catch the exhibition which closes late July, Alan and I would love to hear what you think. In the meantime, or for friends who can’t make it to Dublin, you can watch the film on Vimeo here:

Book trailer: The Fountain in the Forest

Praise for The Fountain in the Forest

“That all these stylistic fireworks can illuminate several rich plot lines, each with multiple twists, which an attentive reader will enjoy disentangling, is the best vindication of experimental prose.” Anna Aslanyan, Financial Times

“rich, riveting … White is always convivial company … His books [are] characterised by stylistic innovation, a feeling for place, a love of rogues and rebels. ” Sukhdev Sandhu, The Guardian

“Tony White’s latest novel begins for all the world like a police procedural, following the delightfully named sleuth Rex King as he investigates the grisly murder of man in a Covent Garden theatre. […] Enjoy it as a noir entertainment or as an evocative picture postcard from the past.” Houman Barekat, Spectator

“The Fountain in the Forest can be read with all the pleasure you might expect from a knotty police procedural, a knowledgeably detailed, intriguing and compelling police procedural at that. The story drives ever forward, even when it takes you backwards in time to take a look at the roots of the crime in question. Even when it flip-flops between two distinct time-streams and character identities within the space of a single sentence, the sense throughout is of a steady and satisfying accretion of significant information, i.e clues – exactly what you’d hope for from any good thriller. […] Read, and enjoy.” Nina Allan

“It is absolutely terrific … it can be enjoyed at the level of a thriller, and yet it does all these other fascinating things, and best of all it’s the first in a trilogy … It’s such a good book.” Andy Miller, Backlisted Podcast

“The Fountain in the Forest is a mystery built on mysteries […] it has heart and tenderness and leads us to the most unexpected places and at the centre of all this puzzling is a thriller with deep hooks.” Nick Garrard, STORGY

“A truly intriguing venture into the crime genre by the talented White.” Maxim Jakubowski, Crime Time

“The Fountain in the Forest is fascinating, beautifully written and really original.” Literary Review

Praise for Foxy-T

'This is, in fact, the best book that has ever been written about Brick Lane [...] an amazing tour de force.' Roy Moxham, The Browser

'...this affectionate tale may tell you more about love, longing and ambition in the inner city than a dozen official reports. Indeed, some readers would argue that it captures the flavour of Asian lives in London E1 with more inside-track relish than another novel of 2003: Monica Ali's Brick Lane.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent

'The book I like best is Tony White’s Foxy-T. Ventriloquism among the Cannon Street xeroxing machines, innit?' Sukhdev Sandhu, 3:am Magazine

'"What's your favourite British novel from the past ten years?" The other day I was with a group of friends, and someone posed this question. A few fairly obvious titles were suggested, which gave me time to think. And when it came my turn to speak, I said, "Foxy T by Tony White".' Toby Litt, Guardian

'...made me grin with surprised admiration. Rejecting familiar influences of the past 20 years, White joins a handful of contemporary writers who are proving that the novel has never been more alive. He is a serious, engaging voice of the modern city.' Michael Moorcock, Guardian

'One of this year's key novels [...] an ingenious, beautifully crafted, thrillingly contemporary love story set in the Bangladeshi east end and narrated in that area's distinctive patois [...] A complex, clever book whose future status as a GCSE set text must be assured.' Time Out